From Ash Wednesday to the Desert | The First Week of Lent

Lent begins with ashes and with the uncomfortable truth that we are not self-sustaining. In this episode of The Rebel Saints Podcast, we move from Ash Wednesday into the Gospel of the First Sunday of Lent, where Jesus is led into the desert and tempted.

What does it mean to be dust? Why does the Church insist on our mortality at the beginning of Lent? And how does Christ’s obedience in the desert reshape our understanding of temptation, grace, and dependence on God?

Drawing from Catholic doctrine, Scripture, and the witness of St. Catherine of Siena, this episode explores the first week of Lent as a movement from illusion to clarity — and from self-sufficiency to trust.

This reflection is for Cycle A. in the Roman Catholic Church. 

Scripture Referenced

Genesis 2–3
Matthew 4:1–11 (or Mark/Luke depending on liturgical year)
1 Corinthians 15:20–26

Catechism References 

CCC 355–365 – The human person (body and soul)
CCC 396–409 – The Fall and original sin
CCC 538–540 – Christ’s temptation in the desert
CCC 1996–2005 – Sanctifying grace

Saints Referenced

St. Catherine of Siena – The Dialogue  = https://amzn.to/3Ouo00k

Music On this Show: 

Intro: Life Mood  & Love Machine by Hartzmann - https://musicvine.com/browse/artist/hartzmann

License code: SUWF2L8VG76UJDZS

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Rebel Saints podcast. My name is Nicole and I am your host. Alright, so we are gonna talk about the first uh week of Lent. I'm gonna start off with Ash Wednesday and go through the first Sunday of Lent. Again, thanks so much for being here. I am so stoked you are. And uh gosh, I'm just I'm just glad to be back. Anyway, so let's let's get down to it, right? Let's talk about Ash Wednesday as a whole, you know, as far as masses go. There's no real pageantry associated with it. You won't get the incense clouds rising like a movie scene. There's no swelling music. I mean, at the heart of it all, you get a priest and a black mixed in there, obviously, is this sentence that you know as a writer, I pay attention to sentence structure, I'm not gonna lie. Um but the sentence it does or it can, if you're paying attention, land a bit heavy, right? And I will remind you that that sentence is remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. And as far as sentences are concerned, it's not dramatic, it's not sentimental, it's not particularly comforting, but it's true. And you know, when I think about that, when I think about the world we live in, and like again, I will remind you that Rebel Saints is about, you know, answering this call to be saints in our world today, in our modern culture, which is really countercultural, right? So, like what is the world offering us today? Curated identities, um, upgrades. We're constantly being sold to something, right? I mean, heck, if with AI now, we can't even believe our own eyes. She calls it mercy. We're gonna talk about why. As you want to say, has this way of like, you know, uh landing us in the middle of literally uh an ordinary week, right? Um, so you go from hearing those words, you know, remember your dust into dust you shall return, and then you're expected to like just go back to your regular day, right? So you're answering emails, folding laundry, sitting in traffic, doing all the things that feel very solid and immediate, essentially, right? Um, and for some, I think it can almost be jarring. Like you you come out of you know, this um mass, and then where you're told the truth about your mortality, and then like you know, we're expected to just carry on like normal. And I think for the most part, a lot of us do. Like, we think about it and we're like, okay, fine. Um, but what we really need to realize is that our church is intentional about the timing. So when we hear these words, you are dust, the church is not trying, you know, to kind of just like diminish us into like saying, Oh yeah, you're nothing, you're like a speck of dust. No. What she's doing is she's reminding us essentially that like you know, we're a creature, right? Um, and that our existence is received. It's like not self-generate, generated, right? Like we didn't just appear poof out of nothing. And in Genesis, we learn that God forms man from the dust of the earth and breathes life into him. So again, the dust is not an insult, it's it's it's a starting point. What gives it dignity is the breath of God. And, you know, if we're being honest, I think most of us live as though, you know, we are self-sustaining in many ways. We act as if our plans, our competence, our control are what keep everything together. Lent, if we really pay attention, if we really, you know, dive into it, it interrupts that illusion. It says to us, actually, fun, you know, honey, you are finite. You are dependent. You are not holding the entire universe together. So, like, you can chill, you can relax a little bit. And then, you know, the first Sunday arrives, the first Sunday of Lent arrives, and um, we're sitting in church and we hear the gospel, and it always takes us straight to Jesus in the desert. Every year we hear about him being led by the Spirit into the lone wilderness where he fasts for 40 days, and during those 40 days, he's tempted. And you know, what strikes me is that this happens immediately after his baptism, immediately after the father declares, This is my beloved son. The desert follows him being identified. It doesn't establish it. So the temptations themselves, I mean, I don't think they're not meant to be like these theatrical displays of evil. They're invitations essentially for Jesus to like, you know, be independent, right? Um, turn stones into bread, prove yourself, take authority without the cross. Each temptation is a subtle push toward his autonomy, toward using this power apart from trust in the father. And in that precise moment is where humanity fell in Genesis, right? The temptation in the garden, it wasn't simply about the fruit, it was about defining good and evil without reference to God, it was about securing life on our own terms. And Jesus walks into like the same game, essentially, right? Um, and he does something radically different. He refuses the shortcut, he refuses to prove himself, he remains obedient, where Adam grasped Christ trusts, and so like that movement from ashes to desert is the movement that we take um in that first week of Lent. Ash Wednesday reminds us, you know, we are dust, you are dust, you are not self-sufficient. But then the first Sunday shows up and you know it gives us an example of what it looks like to live that dependence on our father, to live within that obedience faithfully, and you know, when I think about Ash Wednesday um and that movement from Ashes, like into the desert, like you know, thinking thinking about it, like um, I I kind of come to St. Catherine's Sea of Sienna, and it's it's not because she like lived in a literal desert or anything, it's because she kind of understood something. I think most of us spend our lives resisting, and that's the beginning of strength and knowing you're not God. So when we think about Catherine, you have to know she didn't have any formal education, she was a laywoman in the 14th century in Italy. Um, and this is a person like who ended up writing letters to popes. She was like calling them out, telling them, um, yeah, you need to reform all this corruption. She was calling them back to Rome, saying, get your book back here, like when let's just say political pressure had pulled them elsewhere. She did not speak like someone trying to gain power. No, no, she spoke like someone who had already, you know, surrendered everything to God. And she was like, yo, you gotta do this, right? And I think that distinction matters. She wasn't like talking from a place of like superiority or anything, um, saying, like, I am so holy, I'm holier than thou, and this is what you need to do because I'm so holy. In her dialogue, Catherine described what she calls the cell of self-knowledge. Um, and she says, This cell, in this cell, the soul comes to know two truths simultaneously: who she is and who God is. And then, like, she gets super blunt and she's like, the soul must know herself as she who is not before the one who is. So, like, I I kind of like, I mean, like, this is basically this is Ashwanza. She's like, your dust, and and you're gonna return to it, right? So in this dust, she also realizes it's not humiliation, it's recognizing that only God is the is being itself, only God is self-existent. Everything else exists because he willed it into existence. Catherine understood that not as an abstract concept, but as a lived reality. And here's where, you know, here's what I think is super interesting. That law knowledge, like it didn't make her passive. What it did is it made her fearless. Because, you know, she realized when you stop pretending you are the source, you stop defending your ego so aggressively. When you know you are dependent, obedience doesn't feel like diminishment, it feels like alignment. And so when we look at the desert in the gospel, Jesus is tempted to prove himself, to you know, demonstrate his power to act independently of the Father, each temptation is a distortion of identity. If you are the son of God. Catherine, she would recognize this immediately. And she would say the temptation to define yourself on your own terms is the same temptation from Genesis. It's the same temptation we face every day in smaller, quieter forms, right? Prove yourself, secure yourself, protect your image, control the outcome. Um, you know, Catherine's rebellion was refusing that entire framework. And so she spent years in prayer before she ever wrote a single letter to the Pope. Okay, so like this wasn't like just it didn't just come to her. She spent a lot of time reflecting on this and and learning about this. She called remaining in the cell, even when she moved physically into the world. And what she realized was that the cell, it wasn't isolation, it was like being honest with yourself, like interior honesty. And so when we think about Lent, this is where, like, for me, Catherine comes into Lent, right? The first week of Lent isn't about like a dramatic sacrifice, it's about entering that cell of self-knowledge, it's about allowing the ashes to tell the truth. You are not the source, you are not self-sustaining, you are just breathed into by God. Friends, this is like pure Catholic doctrine, right? This is like literally what we know to be true, and it's not like mystical poetry or anything. Catherine's confidence did not come, you know, from her personality. Though I'm pretty sure it must have been amazing. What it came from was grace. Okay, the church teaches that sanctifying grace is created, is a created share in the divine life. So, what that means is when you are in a state of grace, you are actually participating in God's own life. Like you're not metaphorically, like you are actually participating in his design for creation. And in that participation, that's when our souls are transformed. So when Catherine confronted corruption, she wasn't fueled by her ego. She was aligned with the truth. She could speak boldly because she was not speaking from herself. And that is the paradox of Lent. When you accept that you are dust, you stop clinging to self-sufficiency. When you stop clinging, Grace has room to work. And when grace works, obedience becomes strength rather than weakness. Catherine knew she was not she who is. Catherine knew she was not she who is not. And because of that, she could stand before men who thought they were everything. And friends, I mean, like, if that's not Rebel Saint energy, I don't know what is. She was not like being loud for attention. And like, you know, this week, you know, I heard someone say, oh, like the ashes, like we're literally told, like, we're supposed to like wash our faces and and not like you know, like bring attention to our fasting or whatever. But ashes, ashes is not doing that. Ashes is recognizing that God breathes into our life, God breathes into everything that we do. So, you know, that is like rebelling today against what our culture is telling us. And it's not like an aesthetic, okay, but it's rooted in truth. And and when we know that, compromise, compromising for anything else, it feels impossible. And that's I imagine how Catherine felt. And all of that began with the ashes. It began, it begins with admitting, yeah, you are not, you know, the be-all end all, and that Christ, God, is king. All right, friends, that's gonna um do it for this week's episode of Reppel Saints. Thank you so much for joining us, and I will catch you back here next week with more insights into, I guess, uh, the second week of lent. Bye, okay.